Chapter 4A Spotless Life

The blinding pain made my vision swim in and out of focus.

I felt a warm, sticky liquid seeping from my cast, quickly staining my pajama pants red. The bone had shifted, probably tearing a blood vessel.

In her bassinet, my daughter, startled by my scream, began to wail.

With a monumental effort, I lifted my head and looked at my mother.

“Mom… help me…”

“There’s so much blood… take me to the hospital…”

When she saw the blood pooling on the floor, her expression finally changed. She took an instinctive step towards me, as if to help me up.

Just then, Aunt Brenda’s anxious voice called from outside.

“Sharon! Get down here and give us a hand! This thing is too heavy to fit in the trunk!”

My mother’s movement halted.

She looked at me, drenched in a cold sweat and on the verge of passing out.

Then she looked towards the door.

Aunt Brenda called again, more impatiently this time. “Sharon! Hurry up! Don’t let that brat Anna change her mind and come after us!”

My mother hesitated for a single, eternal second.

Then she turned back to me, pointed a finger, and spat, “Stop faking it! A little blood won’t kill you!”

“I’m going to help your aunt get this thing downstairs. I’ll deal with you when I get back.”

With that, she turned and walked out.

I watched in despair as the door clicked shut.

This was my mother. At the moment my life hung in the balance, she chose to help the robbers carry away their loot.

My consciousness began to fade, consumed by the agony. But I couldn't die. My daughter was still crying.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood, using my elbows to drag my body across the floor, inch by painful inch, towards the coffee table.

A thick, horrifying trail of red marked my path.

Finally, my fingers brushed against my phone. I managed to unlock it, my bloody fingertips smudging the screen before the sensor finally registered.

I dialed Mark’s number.

“Hello? Honey?”

The moment he answered, I used my very last breath to force out a single word:

“Help…”

The phone slipped from my grasp.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

I don’t know how much time passed.

I heard the sound of the front door being forced open with a violent crash.

“ANNA!!!”

It was Mark’s voice, a raw, gut-wrenching roar.

It was followed by frantic footsteps and the panicked shouts of the building’s security guard.

And then, another sound from the doorway. Someone humming a cheerful little tune.

It was my mother.

She had finished her task and was returning at her leisure.

“What’s all the racket? You’re going to break the door!”

“She just took a little fall. Is all this drama really necessary…”

Her voice died in her throat as she took in the scene: the room full of people and the dark, spreading pool of blood on the floor.

Mark, cradling my blood-soaked body, lifted his head. His eyes were blazing red as he stared at her with pure, unadulterated hatred.

I wasn’t “faking it.”

I was, in fact, dying.